


Immoderation

by inelegantly (Lir)



Series: SWAG 2016 Fills [17]
Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Caretaking, Drinking, Future Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 09:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6369763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/inelegantly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After inviting a newly-eighteen Akira to a celebration with other young pros, Ogata is rewarded for his over-indulgence with a round of vomiting in his own bathroom. Akira is kind enough, and polite enough, to care for him with minimal criticism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immoderation

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the sports anime winter games, for the prompt, "Hikaru no Go, Anything and any characters related to vomiting." I took multiple cracks at this prompt, because I was really interested in teasing out what it is about a character being sick and helpless that's appealing to read in fiction. This one is the caretaking, hurt/comfort version.

-

"Here. Drink this." 

Ogata attempts to pull himself up by the toilet's seat, hands curling around its rim and head fighting against gravity. It's heavy on his neck, too heavy, the feat of raising it to peer blearily at Akira almost too much for him to accomplish. Somehow, Ogata manages. Though his vision swims, he identifies Akira's trim figure, watching him from just inside the bathroom door. 

There's a cup of water in Akira's hand. He leans down, offering it in Ogata's general direction. The look in his eyes is too gentle, kind, and it almost makes Ogata feel sick again simply to look at it. 

"I shouldn't have had that last drink," he mutters, as he fumbles with one hand toward the glass. 

Akira catches his fingers, wrapping them securely around the glass of water and ensuring that Ogata doesn't simply upend it over himself. His touch is light, cool. Ogata realizes he's overheating. More the better. 

"You shouldn't have had many of those drinks," Akira chides him, as if a young pro who'd barely surpassed his eighteenth birthday truly knew anything about drinking. "Go on. Have this instead." 

He steadies the glass from one side as Ogata grips onto it from the other and somehow, somehow, they tilt it against Ogata's mouth without incident. It's still messy, cool rivulets of the water trickling out of the corners of his mouth, but he drinks. Water soothes the burn of bile searing down his throat and for a moment Ogata is grateful, even as he feels the liquid hit his empty stomach. 

He lurches, and immediately Akira jumps back, deftly pulling himself out of the way. Ogata curls, hump-backed, over the toilet, heaving and retching as his stomach once again threatens to turn itself inside out. His arms shake, straining to hold himself upright as each retch rocks his body forward, a vile ripple that passes up his throat and tickles the back of his mouth while producing only sour spit for him to gag on. Ogata does, noisily, and spits again into the basin. 

He doesn't sit up again, not even after the last of the nausea spasms have passed. He can feel Akira's eyes heavy on his back, and he doesn't want to see the judging gaze of the much younger pro cast directly into his face. Youth always think they know better than their elders. This once, Akira might be right about that — but it doesn't mean Ogata wants him to know it.

"I can go, if you'd prefer," Akira says. 

"It's fine," Ogata tells him. 

He bites the words off, snappish, each one tasting sour on his tongue, curdled like spoiled milk, like more bile coating the inside of his mouth. He doesn't want to snap at Akira, when he's only trying to help. He doesn't want Akira to see him like this, when he'd only wanted the son of his mentor to be shown a good time, venturing out to his first adult party among the young pros. 

"Is there something else I can get you?" Akira tries again. 

He takes a step forward — too-audible with those shoes he wears, with the echoing acoustics of Ogata's bathroom — and it takes all of Ogata's willpower not to preemptively flinch away. That's pity, the thing Akira is offering. He doesn't want it. 

"I'll be better after I sleep it off," Ogata insists. "And I'll have bread in the morning. An aspirin before bed, if my stomach settles. This isn't the first time I've had one too many to drink."

"Oh?" Akira asks, and polite as he always sounds, Ogata doesn't miss the arch tone. 

"That doesn't mean what you're thinking." 

He almost laughs, feeling more good-natured this time, but the motion causes another wave of nausea to pass through his body. He gags again, but nothing comes up, and when he laughs after that it sounds more than the littlest bit hysterical.

It takes him a minute, to quiet down again, before he murmurs, "I'm sorry. You shouldn't be taking care of me this way." 

"You've done it before for me, haven't you?" Akira asks. "It's the least I can do." 

Ogata sits back, overcome for a moment by a wave of vertigo, but when the urge to retch up his stomach doesn't follow he thinks perhaps he's getting through it. He leans back against the bathroom wall, and tilts his head up toward Akira. 

"Your father raised you well." 

"Thank you," Akira returns, the corners of his mouth only just turning up. 

"It wasn't a joke," Ogata protests. 

"I'm glad," Akira says. "I didn't think it was." 

He pauses another moment, and silence stretches out between them. It's less awkward than before; less embarrassing than when Ogata was actively heaving his guts up and the silence wasn't so much _silent_ as filled with his retching and the weighty feeling of _judgment._ Ogata doesn't mind it so much, when it's companionable.

"Are you feeling better?" Akira speaks up then. "Can I help you to bed? Or should you stay here?" 

"That may have been the last of it," Ogata agrees, tartly, before pushing himself up from the floor. 

He's unsteady on his feet, wobbling as he rises, and Akira darts in to support him. Ogata shoots him a sidelong glance, disbelieving, but can't summon indignation enough to shake himself free. Akira nudges a shoulder underneath Ogata's armpit, and gently leads Ogata into leaning on him. 

"It's the next door down the hall, isn't it?" Akira asks. 

"It's the _only_ door down the hall," Ogata scoffs. But after a beat of silence, he adds, "Thank you." 

He realizes, as soon as he's said it, that it's the first overt expression of gratitude he's made toward Akira, since they got back to his apartment several hours ago. He can tell that Akira is only just smiling, all without having to look. He finds that he's smiling a bit, too, albeit with somewhat more self-deprecation. 

"You're welcome," Akira says, and Ogata thinks: the kid might mean it, too. 

-

-


End file.
